1897 Library of the World’s Best Literature

Warner, Charles Dudley. ed. A Library of the World’s Best Literature. Vol. IX. New York: The International Society, 1897. “Geoffrey Chaucer” by Thomas R. Lounsbury. 3551-3600.

Lounsbury states in his inroduction, the selections included “are partly of extracts and partly of complete pieces. To the former class belong the lines taken from the opening of The Canterbury Tales, with the description of a few of the characters; the description of the temples of mars, of Venus, and of Diana in ‘The Knight’s Tale’; and the account of the disappearance of the fairies at the opening of ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale.’ The complete piece are the tales of the Pardoner, and of the Nun’s Priest. . . The final selection is the ballade now usually entitled ‘Truth.'” (3563) “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale” is Dryden’s translation. The rest have had their spelling “modernized” by Lounsbury.